


Firebirds

by uminoko



Category: Marvel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uminoko/pseuds/uminoko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Affectionately referred to as the Hat Pockets Fic, dedicated to tumblrusers ramblingredrose and skyedestiny</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firebirds

The wind up here is overwhelming. It tears at their hair: Natasha’s, that is, because Peter’s hair is tucked away under not only his mask but also a ridiculous-looking knit hat.

Natasha isn’t sure exactly when it was that she went international, and at this point it seems like maybe she has always been fighting nameless shadowy organizations, aliens, organized crime, or playing some other intricate game with strings running from one capital to another. There was a time, though, when she just jumped from rooftop to rooftop, maybe not in New York, like the kid beside her, maybe Berlin or Istanbul, or her beloved Moscow, and even now, she loves the high places, sometimes simply for such things as watching the sun set behind a city skyline.

The rays spin fire into the hair whipping around her.

Peter dangles his feet over the edge of the skyscraper. “Oh hey, I forgot!” He turns. “I got you something.” He reaches under his hat and pulls out a handful of paper-wrapped candy. “Well, OK, I didn’t get it, it was MJ, she asked me to give it to you when I had a chance.”

Natasha picks the candy out of his hand, arching an eyebrow. “We should get you some pockets or something.”

"I have pockets. In my hat!"

"You do not, and if you think I’m going to eat your hat candy…" Natasha unwraps one and holds it up against the panoramic view. The sun blazes through it like a jewel.

She pops the candy in her mouth, eyes growing wide as soon as she tastes it. The paper wrapper flies from her hands and dances high above their heads, just out of reach.

"You’re littering!" Peter’s tone is accusing, and Natasha doesn’t appreciate it.

"Where did she get raspberry candy?"

Peter shrugs. “She’s a miracle worker. Is it really that unusual? Raspberry candy?”

Natasha tilts her head to the right, then left, saying nothing, lost to savoring.

"Why do you like raspberry so much, anyway? I mean, I’ve noticed - you always get raspberry ice cream, or you just keep actual raspberries in the Tower kitchen; is it the red? Strawberries are red, too, though," he looks up at the wrapper above their heads, as though he is going through an imaginary produce aisle. "So are cherries, although that’s a fruit, not a berry. And tomatoes, which is technically a fruit, but you still don’t seem to have any special relationship to it."

She looks down at the city, where long shadows begin to gather.

"Hey, are you about to have an intense flashback? You look like you’re about to, I just wanted to make sure—"

"Sssssh," she says.

_Natasha remembers._

_Sparks rose high to the grey skies as the girl stood close enough for the fire to singe her eyebrows. The building burned fast, faster than she’d ever thought it would. Soon, the darkness would fall and the cold would come, but just then, the place that she once called her home would keep her warm until the dawn._

_The girl kicked the guard’s arm back into the fire._

_After a while, it grew cold._

_In the morning, when the ashes turned damp from the dew, she turned around and walked into the forest. The moss muffled her steps, the birch trees bended and swayed their glowing bodies with the wind, and she touched her fingers to the papery bark to make sure that they were real._

_When she became hungry, she found a patch of wild raspberry bushes, thorns as thick as barbed wire. But wire has never stopped her before, and the girl laughed as she stuffed berry after berry into her mouth. Some tasted tart, because they were not quite ripe, and some tasted sweet, and all tasted like tiny crimson suns._

"That was an intense flashback, wasn’t it?" says Peter.

Natasha purses her lips and sighs. “When I was maybe three or four years younger than you, I ran away from the place I was raised, and I ran into the woods and ate some raspberries. That was my first little taste of freedom, so it’s good memories, you know?”

The corners of Peter’s mouth turn down ever so slightly. “Wow. How long ago was that?”

"A very long time ago," Natasha says. "The War was still going on."

"The war? Like, World War Two? Holy crap, that’s a really…really long time ago, I kind of forget how um, just how —"

"How old I am sometimes?" Natasha kicks his shin lightly.

Peter straightens up, grinning. “Yeah.”

"That’ll happen," she says, and then the sun finally sinks behind the buildings, and darkness falls on New York.


End file.
